Free Digital Tool
The EduCore™ tool, ASCD's free, online resource, is a platform for teacher-created modules and exemplar lessons aligned to the math and English language arts Common Core State Standards. Access the tool at http://educore.ascd.org, on your smartphone, iPad® tablet, or any other mobile device.
Books
• Common Core Quick-Start Guides: Designed to jump-start your standards implementation, this series of guides includes a lesson design template based on Classroom Instruction That Works, 2nd Edition. The series of books is copublished by ASCD and McREL and covers elementary, middle, and high school math and English language arts.
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• Vocabulary for the Common Core: Learn how to apply Robert Marzano's six-step vocabulary framework to the new standards.
Professional Development Institutes
Choose from several institute options: a one-day session on "Using Formative Assessment to Meet the Demands of the Common Core," two-day session on "Common Core and the Understanding by Design® Framework: Planning Units with the End in Mind," and four-day session on "Leading With Vision: ASCD Common Core Leadership Team Academy."
ASCD Express Series
ASCD's Common Core Quick-Start series of articles in ASCD Express provides practical, easily digested advice for leading Common Core State Standards implementation at your school. Topics include
- Incorporating Digital Devices into Common Core Lessons: How can teachers choose the right technology to use when implementing the standards?
- Putting Students First: By focusing on a few key strategies, you can attend to the demands of the Common Core standards while keeping students at the center of your classroom.
- Fostering Creativity Through Rigor: To foster creativity while attending to the complex thinking required by the standards, instill interest in the subject matter, teach multiple viewpoints to build student confidence with critical-thinking skills, and provide choices for exploring how to solve problems and create products.
- Three Steps for Creating a Professional Learning Network: Consider three stages—assessing, planning, and launching and monitoring—when creating your Common Core–focused professional learning network.
- Focus High School Math on Practices, Critical Areas, and Connections: In the past, students may have gotten by with simply knowing how to solve a math problem; now they need to describe the "why" of a mathematics skill.
- Strategies for Complex Texts Across Content Areas: Find tools for determining text complexity and strategies for teaching complex texts across content areas.
- Unlocking Engagement Through Mathematical Discourse: Mathematical discourse—questioning, reasoning, collaboration, and discussion—can help engage students while focusing on deep conceptual understanding.
- How the Arts Intersect with the Common Core State Standards: Explore four direct connections between the arts and the Common Core standards and consider how Next Generation Arts Standards focused on media arts can strengthen content-area learning.